Greg Hinz On Politics

Ward map confusing? Try getting a garbage can

Believe it or not, there is something that is as difficult to decipher as the morass of squiggles, blobs, distorted pipes and sundry curlicues that passes for the map of reapportioned wards adopted by the City Council a few weeks ago. That something is when the map will go into effect.

Ask folks at City Hall whether new or old wards apply for purposes of voting, zoning and distribution of services and the like and, after a couple of shrugs, you'll get a multipart answer fit for an SAT test.

“I've heard at least a dozen different answers,” confides a senior city executive who regularly interacts with business folks who'd like some certainty in their lives.

“We're dealing with the old aldermen,” another official says. But, just to be safe, the city also is consulting with the new aldermen, too, in the many cases in which blocks or whole neighborhoods are being moved around. Suffice it to say “there's at least two aldermen involved in every issue,” that source adds. “It's a fairly complicated issue.”

I'd say. Here's the problem.

Officially, the new map goes into effect upon publication and approval of the official Journal of City Council proceedings, at the council's meeting on Wednesday. But the lines on the new map are so contorted to protect incumbents and racial and ethnic minorities that doing so immediately is all but impossible.

For instance, the council majority and Mayor Rahm Emanuel pretty much hate Ald. Bob Fioretti, 2nd, a rabble-rousing independent sort with a bit of hot dog in him. So they carved up and parceled out his current ward on the Near South and Near West sides and created a brand-new ward two miles north—not a square inch of which is in Mr. Fioretti's current ward.

As a result, a 3½-mile stretch of Roosevelt Road that's now pretty much within the old 2nd Ward has been divided among the new 3rd, 4th, 11th, 25th, 27th and 28th wards. (Man, I'm glad I'm not the executive director of the Roosevelt Road Improvement Association.) Neither can Mr. Fioretti be expected to represent a different area in which he's never run, much less been elected, though he has begun to make public appearances there.

At the same time, the aldermen of the aforesaid 3rd, 4th, 11th, 25th, 27th and 28th wards are eager to get to know and serve their future new constituents. Mr. Fioretti still represents them. Kind of.

Ergo, the Board of Elections tells me it's likely to start using new ward lines for elections starting in November. In case a party nominee resigns his or her slot on the ballot and has to be replaced by a weighted vote of area ward committeemen, the board will use the old maps.

Ald. Pat O'Connor, 42nd, Mr. Emanuel's City Council floor leader, says he and city lawyers are looking for some answers. A preliminary meeting among key aldermen and the city Law Department was held last week.

“There's a difference of opinion” on what happens when, he says. “In the last two remaps, there clearly was a sort of transition period. But there was no thought that the transition wouldn't finish until the next (aldermanic) election,” in this case 2015.

Mr. O'Connor says he's continuing to represent his old ward, for now, and that appears to be the practice of most of his colleagues. A final answer won't come “until I have some answers.”

He even raises the possibility of holding a special election to elect an alderman from the new 2nd Ward who actually lives in the new 2nd Ward. But Mr. Fioretti says if that occurs, every alderman in every ward ought to have to run.

All I can say is, it's a total mess. When you don't even know who to pay off to get an extra garbage cart—correction: to whom to direct your campaign contribution—events truly are in a sorry state.